Gerald
09-11-11, 01:55 PM
WOW, what a relief.
The president was strong and House Republicans were conciliatory.
There was only one teensy-weensy problem: The president is weak and House Republicans are obstructionist.
Congressional Republicans, heeding polls indicating that their all-out assault on President Obama was risky, finally tempered their public comments after the jobs speech on Thursday and stopped acting like big jerks.
Obama, heeding plummeting polls and beseeching voices from his despairing base, finally deigned to get tough.
In the capital of political tactics, it was just another fine day of faking it.
The president’s supporters had a single reaction to the fiery address to Congress: It’s about time. But as before when Obama had tried to pivot to jobs, an emergency intervened: Democratic surrogates on TV had to talk about the 9/11 plot before being able to talk about the jobs plan.
In case reporters were too dense to get the point, Eric Cantor’s office underlined it in an unsubtle press release. The headline, “Cantor, House Republicans Strike New Tone, Focus On Areas Of Common Ground,” acknowledged that the snarky, obstreperous old tone wasn’t working for them.
Cantor, the House majority leader, who has had an antagonistic relationship with the president, also wrote an op-ed piece for The Richmond Times-Dispatch demurely titled, “Job Creation — A Priority Both Sides Can Agree On.”
Acting less like the bane of Obama’s existence, John Boehner encouraged Republicans to attend the speech and offered no formal response.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/opinion/sunday/dowd-sleeping-barry-awakes.html?src=me&ref=general
Note: September 10, 2011
The president was strong and House Republicans were conciliatory.
There was only one teensy-weensy problem: The president is weak and House Republicans are obstructionist.
Congressional Republicans, heeding polls indicating that their all-out assault on President Obama was risky, finally tempered their public comments after the jobs speech on Thursday and stopped acting like big jerks.
Obama, heeding plummeting polls and beseeching voices from his despairing base, finally deigned to get tough.
In the capital of political tactics, it was just another fine day of faking it.
The president’s supporters had a single reaction to the fiery address to Congress: It’s about time. But as before when Obama had tried to pivot to jobs, an emergency intervened: Democratic surrogates on TV had to talk about the 9/11 plot before being able to talk about the jobs plan.
In case reporters were too dense to get the point, Eric Cantor’s office underlined it in an unsubtle press release. The headline, “Cantor, House Republicans Strike New Tone, Focus On Areas Of Common Ground,” acknowledged that the snarky, obstreperous old tone wasn’t working for them.
Cantor, the House majority leader, who has had an antagonistic relationship with the president, also wrote an op-ed piece for The Richmond Times-Dispatch demurely titled, “Job Creation — A Priority Both Sides Can Agree On.”
Acting less like the bane of Obama’s existence, John Boehner encouraged Republicans to attend the speech and offered no formal response.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/opinion/sunday/dowd-sleeping-barry-awakes.html?src=me&ref=general
Note: September 10, 2011